The Old Tune
THIRTY-SIXTH VARIATION
THIS shred of song you bid me bring
Is snatched from fancy's embers;
Ah, when the lips forget to sing,
The faithful heart remembers!
Too swift the wings of envious Time
To wait for dallying phrases,
Or woven strands of labored rhyme
To thread their cunning mazes.
A word, a sigh, and lo, how plain
Its magic breath discloses
Our life's long vista through a lane
Of threescore summers' roses!
One language years alone can teach
Its roots are young affections
That feel their way to simplest speech
Through silent recollections.
That tongue is ours. How few the words
We need to know a brother!
As simple are the notes of birds,
Yet well they know each other.
This freezing month of ice and snow
That brings our lives together
Lends to our year a living glow
That warms its wintry weather.
So let us meet as eve draws nigh,
And life matures and mellows,
Till Nature whispers with a sigh,
'Good-night, my dear old fellows!'
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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A Wink From Hesper
A wink from Hesper, falling
Fast in the wintry sky,
Comes through the even blue,
Dear, like a word from you…
Is it good-bye?
Across the miles between us
I send you sigh for sigh.
Good-Night, sweet friend, good-night:
Till life and all take flight,
Never good-bye.
poem by William Ernest Henley
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Spring's Whisper
Whispers reach with silkened sigh.
Upon spun wings of time they fly ~
through forests tall and stately bound,
across the brown and barren ground.
Hushed within dark wintry night.
Chilled by nature's frosty sight.
Whispers whisper to the sea ~
Upon new winds a change there'll be.
Above the mountains whispers soar,
a whisper now at heaven's door.
Change follows in expectant glee.
Upon new winds a change there'll be.
Through meadows far ~ they whisper long,
breathing breaths of springtime song.
Alas, sweet wisps of warming see.
Upon new winds a change there'll be.
Awakened by the silkened sigh
of whispers softly flying by ~
earth absorbs the sighs like rain
as springtime whispers once again.
Whispers reach with silkened sigh.
Upon spun wings of time they fly,
to spread their whispers ~ o'er land and sea
Upon new winds a change there'll be.
poem by Hazelmarie Elliott
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Death Took My Forward!
How could l ever forget of you?
Oh my dear Forward!
All the days that together we knew!
Several years by have passed,
Yet of you l still mourn so deeply;
Even if my eyes won't show how so much l weep_
In my heart memories of you l keep
And such that you had to go l wonder why?
As l hear thunder rumbling above the skies!
Your life snatched off during budding;
Only thirty one you had seen!
And of life you were so keen!
So many dreams you had of your life;
But all was cut with a sharp knife
And you went on your own way:
You bade farewell in the cool of the day,
In the ghost mining town of Mhangura.
From my heart you were wrenched forever.
Had you been alive today my dear Forward,
Thirty six seasons would have passed by!
I can only but sigh.
It left me so speechless and feeling down.
Each day at the break of dawn,
The birds chirpy still, beautifully like before!
With their singing they tear my heart to the core_
For my Forward is not with me anymore!
Yes, death took my Forward!
In disbelief l look through the rain seasons,
That together we walked through together;
The ship you stirred intelligently dear brother,
Yet still it was not enough for you to stay.
It is raining! It is raining again!
I cant help the pain;
The tears have since dried
And the memories deep in me buried.
The rain brings memories of home.
How so we would till the land!
Those maize fields, oh boy!
Compounded into the earth you lie!
I hang down my head and not cry.
poem by Tafadzwa Matamba
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In A Simple Rhyme
Well, back in the past when I was treated so coldly,
My love life was a darn disgrace.
Needed someone to love and hold me.
Thats one of the reasons that I was out of place.
So this is love! well, she finally kissed me.
Had me all worked up inside.
I was in love, but cupid missed me.
She up and left, and I almost died.
But I was young and I was far from lonely.
I been that way for a long, long year.
Needed a girl to call my one and only.
Is that you?
You think you got the intrest.
Cmon and take the time.
cause you know I wanna be
Yours in a simple rhyme.
Well, aint life grand when you finally hit it?
Im always a sucker for a real good time.
Woke up in life to find I almost missed it.
Aint I glad that love is blind?
But I was young and I was far too crazy.
Been that way for a long, long time.
Needed a girl, but I was just too lazy.
Now that Ive found you:
You think you got the intrest.
Cmon and take the time.
Im gonna be
Yours in a simple
Rhyme,
Rhyme.
She made her mountains sing.
Birds against an icy sky.
And I heard bells ringin
I think I heard an angel sigh. and she said:
Therell be times,
There will be times
Youre gonna hear the angels singin
Ah.
Ah.
Ah.
You think you got the intrest.
Cmon and take the time.
Im gonna be
Yours in a simple
Rhyme,
Rhyme,
Rhyme.
song performed by by Van Halen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Alas, So Long!
AH! dear one, we were young so long,
It seemed that youth would never go,
For skies and trees were ever in song
And water in singing flow
In the days we never again shall know.
Alas, so long!
Ah! then was it all Spring weather?
Nay, but we were young and together.
Ah! dear one, I've been old so long,
It seems that age is loth to part,
Though days and years have never a song,
And oh! have they still the art
That warmed the pulses of heart to heart?
Alas, so long!
Ah! then was it all Spring weather?
Nay, but we were young and together.
Ah! dear one, you've been dead so long,—
How long until we meet again,
Where hours may never lose their song
Nor flowers forget the rain
In glad noonlight that never shall wane?
Alas, so long!
Ah! shall it be then Spring weather,
And ah! shall we be young together?
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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In Early Spring
O Spring, I know thee! Seek for sweet surprise
In the young children's eyes.
But I have learnt the years, and know the yet
Leaf-folded violet.
Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell
The cuckoo's fitful bell.
I wander in a gray time that encloses
June and the wild hedge-roses.
A year's procession of the flowers doth pass
My feet, along the grass.
And all you sweet birds silent yet, I know
The notes that stir you so,
Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear
Beginnings of the year.
In these young days you meditate your part;
I have it all by heart.
I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers
Hidden and warm with showers,
And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall
Alter his interval.
But not a flower or song I ponder is
My own, but memory's.
I shall be silent in those days desired
Before a world inspired.
O dear brown birds, compose your old song-phrases,
Earth, thy familiar daisies.
The poet mused upon the dusky height,
Between two stars towards night,
His purpose in his heart. I watched, a space,
The meaning of his face:
There was the secret, fled from earth and skies,
Hid in his gray young eyes.
My heart and all the Summer wait his choice,
And wonder for his voice.
Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire
But to divine his lyre?
Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries,
But he is lord of his.
poem by Alice Meynell
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Your song
Stars fill the sky,
Night is so young.
I feel so happy and high,
So, sing me a song.
Bring your guitar,
and raise up your voice.
Take me to a place so far,
away from people and their noise.
Your song takes me up,
and guide me through the haze.
Your song never stopped,
to throw me in a maze,
A maze where i'm breathless but free
where i love you and you love me.
Sing me that song about your life,
and how it started when we met.
Sing me that song about our love,
that song i shall never forget.
Sing me your song and bring me to life,
for those moments only..i surfive.
Angels took your song and wrote it in the sky,
with the beautiful cluster stars.
All the world saw it and they knew,
we are in love and you belong to my arms.
Your song is the love anthem,
As you sing that, you will wait for me,
you love me,
you need me.
Your song puts rules for love.
Sing your song all our lives,
i'll never get enough...
Through and Through
A frown just a smile upside down
A smile a country mile wide
That, s you by my side
Living with you throughout the year
Brings a gentle tear
give me a break for every downy flake
Of snow
On a gloomy lake
Sing me a song like a mockingbird
Don't make it short but long
Live like a lover smitten
While we are united in flight
Oh the melody so sweet
A flake of snow
Over a moonlit lake
Life passes by, but why?
Your love your gentle sigh
My God. Is heaven nigh?
I only love you through and through.
Picture Me
Picture me on a cold, wintry day,
the snow crunching under my feet,
snow flakes kiss me as we meet.
They whirl and twirl in wintry dance,
on the look-out for romance.
My joyous heart beats its wintry song,
I once again feel young and strong,
Revitalized and energized, I record
my footprints in the snow to tell
this day has not gone by,
watching through a window pane,
the magic wonder of transformed rain.
poem by Elke Nigro
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Why Poets?
When a poem is read
A reader's home is entered
Where dwells a kindred spirit
You laugh…you cry
You groan and you sigh
You feel and taste and hear it
We bring tears to eyes
Smiles to lips…
Memories to mind
We make you think
With pen and ink
And open minds once blind
That music is a source of joy
Of that, of course there is
No doubt
But words and phrases
Ink on pages, of that
We'd ne'er do without
It's a gift given to very few
In truth, this game
of words and phrases
Of measurable worth?
Of real value none?
Of real time and of real places?
So why the need for you and me?
What place have we…Poets,
In grand schemes, of things and matters?
…It's because….
We give wings to words
That soar like birds
And oftimes leave your heart
…in tatters…
poem by David Whalen
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In Fancy The Song Of The Dipper
In fancy the song of the dipper I hear
The river he sings in to my thoughts are near
With snow white breast and mostly dark brown
As he sing on a rock midst the rapids he bobs up and down
A beautiful to look at bird with a plain enough song
Once seen and once heard him you never get wrong
As birds go one might say a stranger to renown
He lives and breeds in the river that flows by the town
'Tis part of his natural duty for him to help his dipper wife
For to raise their young dippers for a river life
And in Seasons from now when the life from him long gone
The song of the dipper in the river lives on
In fancy I can hear him singing today
And the river he sings in from me doesn't seem far away
poem by Francis Duggan
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The Baptistry
One winter eve, at twilight, when the sound
Of sorrowful winds scarce troubled Nature's rest,
As she lay sleeping, with her hair unbound,
Holding her grey robe to her shivering breast,
I enter'd through a low-arch'd oaken door,
Circled with curious sculpture; and I crept
With slow, hush'd footsteps, o'er the shadow'd floor,
Where organ notes in sudden silence slept;
Far down the aisle, where darkness seem'd to brood
With such wide-spreading wings, and where the sigh
Of murmur'd prayer scarce came,—until I stood
In the deep stillness of the Baptistry.
There, in the dim side-chapel, no bright glow
From jewelled windows on the wall was shed;
No sunbeams rested on the font below,
Or kiss'd those mighty arches overhead.
Soft lines and curves went upward, and were lost
In solemn shadow and in dreamy space;
Only the level floor was faintly crost
With glimmering brightness from the holy place.
And, as I listen'd, I heard music sweet
Trembling and swelling through the soundless air,
Threading dark aisles, as if an angel's feet
Were bidden bring God's message to me there.
Ah! and the echo of those anthem notes
Wanders and whispers in my heart for aye:
In all my life the mystic language floats,
Fitful and faint, as in my ears that day.
One whom we knew had enter'd into rest—
Calm on the pillow lay his hoary head;
And through that music spoke, in accents blest,
Our holy Mother's voice, hallowing the dead,
Telling of perfect peace, of labours done,
Of long years' sorrow turned to joy at last—
The quiet sleep, when battles all are won—
The hush of evening when the day is past.
I look'd upon the font, and mused of all
Its wondrous meaning, till my thoughts grew dim
And vast and shadowy as those columns tall;—
Morning of life for me—death's night for him!
How fancy tried to span that awful space
Between the two—between the here and there!
To bridge the nave—up to that blessed Place
Where light and song stream'd on the chancel-stair!
Dim recollections drifted through my brain—
Echoing footfalls of past childish years,
When the baptismal robe had less of stain,
E'en though unwash'd by penitential tears.
I saw the gloomy shadows o'er my head,
And sigh'd to think how I had suffer'd loss;
I saw the soft light, and was comforted,—
I knew it shone straight from the chancel-cross.
A few more steps, and then I stood below
The towering minster coronet again;
Down on my face that pure and gentle glow
Fell, like a pitying kiss in time of pain.
Down to my feet it stream'd; a passage dim,
With hosts of phantom-shapes on either side,
It drifted through;—as songs of seraphim
Drift through our mourning hearts at Easter-tide.
Looking up then, I seem'd to see my life,—
A long, dim vista, where the rays descend—
Where light and darkness wage continual strife;
But only light—the full light—at the end.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Heartland
George jr.:
When you hear twin fiddles and a steel guitar
You're listenin' to the sound of the american heart
And opry music on a saturday night
Brings a smile to your face and a tear to your eye
Sing a song about the heartland
The only place i feel at home
Sing about the way a good man
Works until the daylight's gone
Sing the rain on the roof on a summer night
Where they still know wrong from right
Sing a song about the heartland
Sing a song about my life
George:
There's a place where mornings are an endless blue
And you feel mother nature along with you
Where simple people livin' side by side
Still wave to their neighbor when they're drivin' by
Sing a song about the heartland
Sing a song about the heartland
Sing a song about my life
song performed by by George Strait
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Can't Wait
So hard to say a couple words
love, the hardest feeling to articulate
a feeling long gone today, yet in my heart she remains
don't ask me to forget... i do fret i long for her!
I ardently desire to hold her hand in mine and sing her my song
Now i speak clearly to you darling, i want to stay with you forever
my ties with you i shall never sever
i love you more than you know
i see that you reap what you sow
i would sow nearly anything to be with you
do you love me too?
yes or no.... i feel as if i can't wait
but i will wait till the end of time
i will sing you rhyme after rhyme
until i am yours and you are mine
poem by David Knox
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The First Spring Day
I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,
If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,
If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun
And crocus fires are kindling one by one:
Sing, robin, sing;
I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring.
I wonder if the springtide of this year
Will bring another Spring both lost and dear;
If heart and spirit will find out their Spring,
Or if the world alone will bud and sing:
Sing, hope, to me;
Sweet notes, my hope, soft notes for memory.
The sap will surely quicken soon or late,
The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate;
So Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom,
Or in this world, or in the world to come:
Sing, voice of Spring,
Till I too blossom and rejoice and sing.
poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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June In January
When in January it’s June,
in March it will be August, hot
and clammy while I swoon
within your arms, if I am not
mistaken about climate change
that is inevitable when
the summer months within my range
make me perspire once again,
and long for January that’s cold,
when I feel comfortable within
your arms, not feeble, frazzled, old,
and ready to embark on sin,
without the need for air condit-
ioning that I associate with June.
That’s why in wintertime I wish
that January will not leave soon,
but when it does it should be May,
my favorite month when birds do sing,
accompanying my love each day
with joy while you make my heart spring.
Inspired by “It’s June in January, ” a song associated with Bing Crosby, written by Ralph Rainger and Leon Robin:
A clouded moon creeps across the clouded sky
Winds of January sigh and moan
And yet it's June.
I can see a sky of blue
Dear the miracle is due to you.
Just you.
It's June in January
Because I'm in love
It always is spring in my heart
with you in my arms.
The snow is just white blossoms
that fall from above.
And here is the reason, my dear,
Your magical charms.
The night is cold
The trees are bare
But I can feel the scent of roses in the air.
It's June in January
Because I'm in love.
But only because I'm in love with you.
Oh the night is cold!
Won't it be to bear?
But I can feel the scent of roses in the air.
It's June in January
Because I'm in love
`1/23/08
poem by Gershon Hepner
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My Annual
How long will this harp which you once loved to hear
Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of a tear?
How long stir the echoes it wakened of old,
While its strings were unbroken, untarnished its gold?
Dear friends of my boyhood, my words do you wrong;
The heart, the heart only, shall throb in my song;
It reads the kind answer that looks from your eyes,--
'We will bid our old harper play on till he dies.'
Though Youth, the fair angel that looked o'er the strings,
Has lost the bright glory that gleamed on his wings,
Though the freshness of morning has passed from its tone
It is still the old harp that was always your own.
I claim not its music,--each note it affords
I strike from your heart-strings, that lend me its chords;
I know you will listen and love to the last,
For it trembles and thrills with the voice of your past.
Ah, brothers! dear brothers! the harp that I hold
No craftsman could string and no artisan mould;
He shaped it, He strung it, who fashioned the lyres
That ring with the hymns of the seraphim choirs.
Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings,
Not mine the faint fragrance around it that clings;
Those shapes are the phantoms of years that are fled,
Those sweets breathe from roses your summers have shed.
Each hour of the past lends its tribute to this,
Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden of Bliss;
The thorn and the thistle may grow as they will,
Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise still.
The bird wanders careless while summer is green,
The leaf-hidden cradle that rocked him unseen;
When Autumn's rude fingers the woods have undressed,
The boughs may look bare, but they show him his nest.
Too precious these moments! the lustre they fling
Is the light of our year, is the gem of its ring,
So brimming with sunshine, we almost forget
The rays it has lost, and its border of jet.
While round us the many-hued halo is shed,
How dear are the living, how near are the dead!
One circle, scarce broken, these waiting below,
Those walking the shores where the asphodels blow!
Not life shall enlarge it nor death shall divide,--
No brother new-born finds his place at my side;
No titles shall freeze us, no grandeurs infest,
His Honor, His Worship, are boys like the rest.
Some won the world's homage, their names we hold dear,--
But Friendship, not Fame, is the countersign here;
Make room by the conqueror crowned in the strife
For the comrade that limps from the battle of life!
What tongue talks of battle? Too long we have heard
In sorrow, in anguish, that terrible word;
It reddened the sunshine, it crimsoned the wave,
It sprinkled our doors with the blood of our brave.
Peace, Peace comes at last, with her garland of white;
Peace broods in all hearts as we gather to-night;
The blazon of Union spreads full in the sun;
We echo its words,--We are one! We are one!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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The Iron Gate
WHERE is this patriarch you are kindly greeting?
Not unfamiliar to my ear his name,
Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting
In days long vanished,-- is he still the same,
Or changed by years, forgotten and forgetting,
Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought,
Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting,
Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought?
Old age, the graybeard! Well, indeed, I know him,--
Shrunk, tottering, bent, of aches and ills the prey;
In sermon, story, fable, picture, poem,
Oft have I met him from my earliest day:
In my old Aesop, toiling with his bundle,--
His load of sticks,-- politely asking Death,
Who comes when called for,-- would he lug or trundle
His fagot for him?-- he was scant of breath.
And sad "Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher,"--
Has he not stamped tbe image on my soul,
In that last chapter, where the worn-out Teacher
Sighs o'er the loosened cord, the broken bowl?
Yes, long, indeed, I 've known him at a distance,
And now my lifted door-latch shows him here;
I take his shrivelled hand without resistance,
And find him smiling as his step draws near.
What though of gilded baubles he bereaves us,
Dear to the heart of youth, to manhood's prime;
Think of the calm he brings, the wealth he leaves us,
The hoarded spoils, the legacies of time!
Altars once flaming, still with incense fragrant,
Passion's uneasy nurslings rocked asleep,
Hope's anchor faster, wild desire less vagrant,
Life's flow less noisy, but the stream how deep!
Still as the silver cord gets worn and slender,
Its lightened task-work tugs with lessening strain,
Hands get more helpful, voices, grown more tender,
Soothe with their softened tones the slumberous brain.
Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers,
Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past,
Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers
That warm its creeping life-blood till the last.
Dear to its heart is every loving token
That comes unbidden era its pulse grows cold,
Ere the last lingering ties of life are broken,
Its labors ended and its story told.
Ah, while around us rosy youth rejoices,
For us the sorrow-laden breezes sigh,
And through the chorus of its jocund voices
Throbs the sharp note of misery's hopeless cry.
As on the gauzy wings of fancy flying
From some far orb I track our watery sphere,
Home of the struggling, suffering, doubting, dying,
The silvered globule seems a glistening tear.
But Nature lends her mirror of illusion
To win from saddening scenes our age-dimmed eyes,
And misty day-dreams blend in sweet confusion
The wintry landscape and the summer skies.
So when the iron portal shuts behind us,
And life forgets us in its noise and whirl,
Visions that shunned the glaring noonday find us,
And glimmering starlight shows the gates of pearl.
I come not here your morning hour to sadden,
A limping pilgrim, leaning on his staff,--
I, who have never deemed it sin to gladden
This vale of sorrows with a wholesome laugh.
If word of mine another's gloom has brightened,
Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent message came;
If hand of mine another's task has lightened,
It felt the guidance that it dares not claim.
But, O my gentle sisters, O my brothers,
These thick-sown snow-flakes hint of toil's release;
These feebler pulses bid me leave to others
The tasks once welcome; evening asks for peace.
Time claims his tribute; silence now golden;
Let me not vex the too long suffering lyre;
Though to your love untiring still beholden,
The curfew tells me-- cover up the fire.
And now with grateful smile and accents cheerful,
And warmer heart than look or word can tell,
In simplest phrase-- these traitorous eyes are tearful--
Thanks, Brothers, Sisters,-- Children,-- and farewell!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Treasure (Whatever Happened To Pete The Chop?)
I like to smile
But I like to mostly stay with you
I like good times
But I can't feel this without you
By my song
The heart is in the place
I sing this song
Probably so
If I could sigh
I'd tell the world I'd felt with you
I like the time
I like the feeling when
I feel you in my arms
I'll take you in my hand
I'll let you go
Somebody save me
Somebody save me
Sing it
Sing my, sing my song
We sing the same old song loud
Smile...though your heart breaks in two
Touch me...when will I be with you
I like good times
But I can feel it's going wrong
You sing the same old song
Now I think it's time to get it right
Sing it out, sing out...
Sing this same old song
If I could swim, I'd swim in circles
If I could drown, I'd, I'd drown with you
If I had enough of my life
I can't tell
If I had enough of you
song performed by by U2
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Treasure
I like to smile
But I like to mostly stay with you
I like good times
But I cant feel this without you
By my song
The heart is in the place
I sing this song
Probably so
If I could sigh
Id tell the world Id felt with you
I like the time
I like the feeling when
I feel you in my arms
Ill take you in my hand
Ill let you go
Somebody save me
Somebody save me
Sing it
Sing my, sing my song
We sing the same old song loud
Smile...though your heart breaks in two
Touch me...when will I be with you
I like good times
But I can feel its going wrong
You sing the same old song
Now I think its time to get it right
Sing it out, sing out...
Sing this same old song
If I could swim, Id swim in circles
If I could drown, id, Id drown with you
If I had enough of my life
I cant tell
If I had enough of you
song performed by by U2
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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